John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

SCOTT S LIFE OF NAPOLEON. 37
Street. The real advances, apparently, remained to be worked
out by his own unassisted strength during the next twelve
years.
I may remark, in conclusion, that I think he greatly
" The masterly sketch which
overrates the value of Whately :
he has given of the whole science in the analytical form,
of it in
previously to entering upon a more detailed exposition
the synthetical order, constitutes one of the greatest merits of
the volume, as an elementary work." If, instead of merits,
defects were substituted, the sentence would be, in my judg
ment very near the truth. The mode of arrangement was >
and
singularly confusing to myself, when I first read the book ;
the testimony of all subsequent writers on Logic must be held
as against it for not one, to my knowledge, has ever repeated it.
It grew out of the very laudable desire to approach an abstract
subject by a concrete introduction; but the conditions of success
in that endeavour have scarcely yet been realized by any one of
the many that have made it. At a later period,
Grote reclaimed
above Hamilton.
strongly against Mill s setting Whately
The final article, in April, 1828, is the review of Scott s Life
of Napoleon. It extends to sixty pages, and is in every way a
masterpiece. He had now made a thorough study of the
French Revolution, and had formed the design to be himself
its historian. He does ample justice to Scott s genius as a
narrator, and to a certain amount of impartiality founded on
his naturally tolerant disposition, and his desire to win the
good word of everybody.
But the exposure of the many and
deep-seated defects of the work, both in facts and in reason
ings, is complete, and would have marred the fame of any
other writer. In point of execution, it is not unworthy to be
compared with the Sedgwick and Whewell articles.
I consider some observations called for on the mental crisis
of 1826. He had then completed his twentieth year. The
subjective description given of his state must be accepted as
complete. But the occurrence is treated as purely spiritual or